


Ten Lashes

by aravenwood



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Flogging, Food Issues, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-08 01:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10375335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/pseuds/aravenwood
Summary: How many lashes were reasonable for theft, Rodney wondered, if the reasoning behind it was technically Elizabeth's fault.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I spent an hour and a half trying to think of a summary for this story that doesn't spoil the entire plot... I don't think I was entirely successful...
> 
> Enjoy!

How many lashes was reasonable for theft, Rodney wondered, if the reasoning behind it was technically Elizabeth’s fault.

 

Dr Mann had been displaying signs of post-traumatic stress disorder for weeks now; brought on by his extended imprisonment with their supposed allies because of a misunderstanding. He’d refused to explain where the injuries in his hands and arms had come from, but he didn’t need to; after being captured for touching the wrong thing, it seemed that his captors wanted to prevent that from happening again, and Elizabeth had made no attempt to bring him home before the end of his sentence.

 

After returning, much thinner and silenced by his trauma, he developed a reputation for hoarding food; eating only small platefuls at meals and folding the rest of it into napkins, creating a sort of stockpile only his own terrified brain could explain. When his behaviour was brought up at a senior staff meeting by a concerned Elizabeth, Beckett had tried his best to explain.

 

“He’s hoarding food because he knows what it’s like to be without.”

 

The anxious hoarding reached new levels when he, in a paranoia-fuelled panic, broke into the kitchens in the middle of the night, only to be caught by a marine on a midnight caffeine haul.

 

Anxiety or not, a punishment was necessary. And as usual, Rodney had to decide what it was.

 

There was no real hierarchy of punishment, just two extremes; fifty lashes for indirectly or directly causing the injury of another, and five for being an idiot off-world. Theft came somewhere between the two, more towards being an idiot than causing anyone any harm.

 

Ten was fair.

 

Rodney autographed the official punishment forms on the line and shoved them to the corner of his desk. His hands were shaking and he wanted to be sick. Punishments were the worst.

 

“Hey, Rodney.”

 

Even Sheppard sounded solemn; he hated the whippings almost as much as Rodney.

 

Rodney didn’t have the strength to speak for once; his teeth chattered loudly even as he clenched his jaw to silence them. He just handed over the form and ran a trembling hand over his eyes.

 

Sheppard skim-read it and nodded after a second. “Ten… You sure you can handle that?”

 

“I’m going to have to, aren’t I? If it’s too small a punishment then Elizabeth gets a say and you know as well as I do that she’s not afraid of drawing a little blood to make a point,” Rodney sneered.

 

Early on in her leadership, she’d nearly killed a young marine after getting a little too enthusiastic with her flogging. She didn’t even have the guts to be ashamed that the punishment meant that the marine could barely lift his arms to shoot a gun because of the tissue scarring across his shoulders.

 

Sheppard grimaced but nodded nonetheless. “Give me a pen and I’ll sign this off,” he sighed. He tightened his fist around the paper, looking more like he wanted to tear it up than allow the punishment to happen.

 

Rodney wondered who Sheppard felt sorrier for – him or Dr Mann.

 

\------------------------------------- 

 

As Elizabeth passed the whip over, Dr Mann shuddered; Rodney could see it even from halfway across the room. He wasn’t even new to Atlantis – he’d just presumably kept to himself so much he’d never witnessed a punishment.

 

Boy was he in for a surprise.

 

The whip trembled as it hung from a limp hand. Rodney braced himself; tightened his shoulders, straightened his back.

 

“Dr Mann, are you ready?” Elizabeth asked gently; a façade that pretended that witnessing punishments wasn’t the best part of her job.

 

Dr Mann nodded slowly and the whip was raised.

 

Rodney moaned as the leather cut into his skin for the first of ten times, Dr Mann’s lack of experience shining through. The movement of the whip wasn’t powerful or controlled, which only made the pain worse.

 

Number two sliced across his left shoulder blade and he couldn’t hold back a sharp yelp. Three and four made contact at the same point, deepening the originally shallow welt.

 

By number five, he felt himself drifting off; his mind trying desperately to leave his body. He had no qualms against allowing that.

_“Everyone has to understand that their actions have consequences, and floggings will do that,” Elizabeth tried to reason. As if she actually_ had _to it; her leadership was losing its originally democratic feel in favour of a dictatorship that Sheppard and Rodney ignored._

_Sheppard slammed a fist on the table. “Whipping a person doesn’t make them learn a lesson – it just terrifies them into submission. Do you really want the people protecting you to be that way?”_

_“Would you rather they be so disobedient you never know if they’re going to help or harm you? Major, I know what I’m doing. I’ve seen how effective floggings can be,” Elizabeth snapped, all pretence of control falling away. “I’m implementing them whether you like it or not – do you want to be the first punishment?”_

_Rodney wanted to be sick all over her. He’d felt the bite of a belt before, at the hands of his uncle. He could almost feel that sting across his back like he was nine years old again, and he shuddered at the phantom pain. He wouldn’t wish agony like that on anyone._

_Rodney knew exactly what to do, what he_ had _to do just so he could sleep at night._

_“Elizabeth, have you ever heard of a whipping boy?”_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and for making it to the end!


End file.
